Pastors' Blog

A “G’day, Mate” to you from 850 new young friends in Australia! Karen and I just returned from two weeks “down under” with some of Australia’s best and brightest. I had the privilege of preaching fourteen times at two identical four-day Adventist Youth Conference (AYC) events in Melbourne and then in Sydney. And while we returned jet-lagged from the sixteen hour time change, we came home energized. And let me tell you why.

I’ve never seen so many young adults and youth turned on to God’s passion to save lost people as we did at these two AYC events. From the Thursday evening opening to the Sunday afternoon closing, both conferences were woven with young adult testimonies of witnessing for Christ experiences (in the dominantly secular Australian culture). Over and over, the kids up front described how just a year ago (at the previous AYC event) they had been frightened at the very thought of going door to door to take spiritual interest surveys from total strangers. But swallowing their fears, they had indeed gone out—and now they were coming back “rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves!” Literally. Because standing beside many of these young adult “testifiers” were the newly baptized “strangers” they had met and won to Christ, by going door to door. It was electric!

And it was persuasive. Johnny Wong—who used to be the Asia-Pacific head of Oracle, the world’s largest enterprise software company, and who is the founder of the AYC movement in Australia and the visionary behind the Gateway S.D.A. Church plants in both Melbourne and Sydney (eighty percent of his church plant members are under the age of 30!)—listened to the “Primetime” sermon series at our website and asked me to present those teachings at these conferences. He was very clear with all of us who were preaching that they wanted decisions from the attendees both for baptism and for becoming Bible workers (a term they use to describe young adults who take a hiatus from their university studies or from their jobs in order to do evangelism in the city around one of the church plants). I was asked to make two major appeals for Sabbath and Sunday, and I was impressed to add a third appeal at the Friday night service. Just before I walked onto the platform to preach the final service this past Sunday afternoon, Johnny shared with me that before that final appeal 78 decisions had already been made for baptism and rebaptism at both venues (with all the preachers). He also gave me the number for those who had made commitments to become Bible workers—but I must confess that I was so surprised at the 78 baptisms and rebaptism that I missed it!

But I shouldn’t have been surprised. Because there was prayer cover back here at home unlike any recent preaching trip I’ve been on. I’m convinced that the response to the appeals reflects the power of intercessory praying—and I thank God for your prayer partnership. The Friday evening sermon invited the young to begin praying for the salvation of five lost people they knew. Afterwards some of them told us that individuals they had written down that very evening made decisions for baptism within the next 24 hours. The power of intercessory praying! But I also believe the response reflects the power of personal testimony. After those young “testifiers” were through, I, too, was ready to jump to my feet and pledge my life in active partnership with God and his passion to save lost people. For I am convinced there is no greater joy than leading a lost person to the Savior.

In Australia we witnessed the dramatic fulfillment of God’s promise, “Those who continually go forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with them” (Psalm 126:6). And since that’s a promise the works both “down under” and “up over”—I say let’s join them!

One of our Brazilian students, Tiago, sent me a video clip from Haiti. It was shot by a Brazilian U.N. peacekeeper soldier moments after the 7.0 magnitude quake struck Port-au-Prince a week ago. While I can’t understand the Portuguese voiceover or subtitles, the footage reality transcends all languages. Cement rubble lies strewn in the city street, a thick cloud of dust hovers above the surreal scene, while survivors stumble in a daze, in silence or with tears and screams. As the peacekeeper walks through the mayhem, filming as he proceeds, suddenly into view there is a cathedral, its façade crumbled across the street. But amazingly a giant porcelain crucifix towers toward the sky amidst the strewn debris. Some are gathered on their knees before the hanging Christ, with arms outstretched toward him, pleading in voices loud enough to be heard on the video. And you don’t have to speak Creole to know the content of their prayers. It is a scene you will not quickly forget.(http://fantastico.globo.com/Jornalismo/FANT/0,,MUL1451469-15605,00-VIDEO+MOSTRA+PRIMEIROS+MOMENTOS+DA+TRAGEDIA+NO+HAITI.html)

Where was Christ on that day and these now ten days hence of incomprehensible tragedy and mounting human loss? Is he a porcelain God, unmoved by suffering, even of this magnitude?

The ancient prophet quietly confessed, “In all their affliction, he was afflicted” (Isaiah 63:9). In all our affliction, God is afflicted? It is true—the Eternal One, who emerges from amidst the narratives and nuances of Holy Scripture, is often times perceived by our distressed hearts as deus absconditus, what Martin Luther called “the hidden God.” And those sobbing prayers at the foot of that porcelain crucifix no doubt were directed in their anguish at the “hidden God”—the incomprehensible One who in our suffering can seem so very far away.

But the irony of that dust-choking scene from Haiti is that it portrays a more compelling truth: it is in the midst of our desperate human pain that the cross still towers with hope. For in the face of its Victim, we gaze upon the face of God—the only God in the universe who has entered into our human tragedy and in our affliction continues to be afflicted. How can we know? Because the cross is his own multiple-magnitude sacrifice to purchase the right to one day obliterate evil’s dark and tyrannical rule in Haiti and here. “Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory” (I Corinthians 15:54).

But until then, in all our affliction, he is afflicted. Or in the words of William Blake, “Till our grief is fled and gone, He doth sit by us and moan.”

Do you really think new “pat down” measures at the airport will make air travel more secure? I read a piece by syndicated British columnist Gwynne Dyer, and I’m afraid he’s right. In response to the Christmas Day attempt to bring down that Detroit-bound airliner through concealed explosives on one of the passengers, government officials have had to devise some sort of official “upgrade” to our present travel security to assure the traveling public that the skies once again are “friendly.” Dyer comments, “It is the duty of all public officials to ‘do something’ whenever a new threat appears, even if there is nothing sensible to be done.” The truth is that profiling international travelers by nationality or country of birth or origin (as the new security regulations do) not only lumps vast numbers of innocent people into the category of “suspicious” (or, guilty until proven innocent), it assumes that terror and terrorists are limited to these watch-listed nations (which is hardly true). And as for hand searches, most agree that the only effective method of full-body screening would need to include “body cavity searches.” And the public will not stand for that, will we?

So shall we then despair of air travel this New Year? Hardly! Dyer responds that we are still fifty times more likely to succumb in an automobile than in an aircraft. His point?  “Accept that nothing is perfect” (SBTribune 1-6-10).

My point? There is no ultimate travel security through technology or by regulation. Just ask the Apostle Paul, who himself was shipwrecked three times, spending “a night and a day in the open sea” (II Corinthians 11:25). The compelling reality is that as children of the Heavenly Father our deepest dependence must always be on him. Which is why that great Psalm of the Reformation, the one that inspired Martin Luther’s “Ein’ feste burg ist unser Gott” (“A mighty fortress is our God”), opens with the strong assurance of ultimate divine security: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear” (Psalm 46:1, 2). No fear with him!

What more reassuring promise could there be for you and me to daily claim this uncharted New Year? Yes, on land and sea or in the air, we’ll depend upon the vigilance of our governments to do all in their power to protect the traveling public. And as friends of Christ and obedient citizens of our countries, we will (to the best of our ability) cheerfully submit to the measures that will impinge upon us. (I tried to remember that as I was pulled out of line for a full body “pat down” at the Johannesburg South Africa airport just before Christmas—and here I thought I looked rather honest!) But in the end whether abroad or at home “God is our refuge and strength.” And he will be our help 24/7 in the voyage before us.  And besides, when God “pats down” your day before you even get to it, what could make your journey more secure?

Sir Isaac Newton called it “the foundation stone of the Christian religion,” this not-so-easy-to-decipher prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27.  It’s connected, “determined” or “cut off” in biblical terminology, from a much more extensive prophecy in Daniel 8 which includes a symbolic ram, goat, little horn and 2300 prophetic days or literal years.  The angel Gabriel had explained to Daniel what the ram, goat and little horn stood for, and informed Daniel that the 2300 days/years would reach “to the time of the end.”  Then after Daniel’s extended prayer in chapter 9, Gabriel returned to explain to Daniel how the 2300 year prophecy of Daniel 8:14 would be initiated by a series of events that would occur over a period of 70 sevens, or 70 weeks (a period understood by many Protestant scholars through the centuries as 490 years).   It’s this 490-year prophecy that Newton was so excited about.

Daniel 9:25 revealed that this 490-year prophetic period would commence with the decree to rebuild and restore Jerusalem. At the time this prophecy was given (6th century B.C.), Jerusalem lay in ruins and the Jews were in captivity in Babylon.  Then in 457 B.C., the third in a series of Persian decrees allowing Jerusalem to be restored was issued, and the 490-year prophecy began to be fulfilled.

Daniel 9:25-26 indicates that 7 prophetic weeks (during which Jerusalem was rebuilt) plus 69 prophetic weeks (which added together computes to 483 prophetic weeks or 483 literal years) after 457 B.C., the Messiah the Prince, that is, God’s anointed One, would come.  When that’s figured out mathematically, it works out to 27 A.D. (456½ + 26½ = 483). What is absolutely fascinating about this is that there is only one year in the life of Jesus to which the Bible assigns a date, and that is the year of His baptism, when He was anointed by the Holy Spirit, became the Messiah and began his ministry: according to Luke 3:1, 21-23, this occurred in the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar, or 27 A.D., exactly as had been prophesied in Daniel’s prophecy given over 500 years earlier!

In Daniel 9:27 the focus shifts to the final seven to fulfill the prophecy.  And here the drama intensifies.  The focus of that final week is on what happened when Jesus came in the middle of it: “In the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering” (NKJV).  Verse 26 adds that “Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself.”  Based on the number of annual Passovers Jesus attended after His baptism, scholars near unanimously agree that His ministry lasted for 3½ years (which reaches to the middle of that final prophetic 7 year period), and then He was crucified, “cut off,” “but not for Himself” (because He died not for His own sins of which He had none, but for ours).  And His death for us “brought an end to [the animal] sacrifice[s] and offering[s]” which had pointed forward to His death.  It all happened just as it had been prophesied.  Newton believed that this prophecy, which foretold over 500 years in advance the very time when Jesus would be baptized and crucified for our redemption, was proof positive that Jesus was the Messiah prophesied by the Old Testament.

Cataclysmic consequences for our world resulted when Jesus came in the middle of the final week of that prophecy.  But then, cataclysmic consequences always occur when Jesus comes in the middle of anything, or anyone.